4. That the sittings at which he was present were held at night, and
that he could not remember what sort of a light they had.
5. That Zoellner's mental derangement came on very gradually, so that it
would be difficult to say when it began; but that from the time of his
experiments with Slade it was more pronounced. He (Fechner) did not
think, however, that it incapacitated Zoellner as an observer, the
derangement being emotional; but, such as it was, it was clearly shown
in his family and in his intercourse with friends.
6. Professor Fechner referred me to Professors Scheibner and Weber for
information, saying that these two were present at most of the sittings.
I failed at this time to meet Professor Scheibner, who, though resident
in Leipsic, happened to be away from home on a visit; but, having made
an appointment with him by letter, I returned to Leipsic on July 3d, and
called upon him at his home; upon this occasion he gave me more full and
satisfactory details concerning Professor Zoellner's investigation than
I succeeded in obtaining from any of the others. The notes which I made
during my conversation with him I translated to him, and corrected in
accordance with his suggestions before leaving his house. After my
return to Halle I copied my notes out in full, and sent them by mail to
Professor Scheibner, with the request that he correct them and return
them to me at Berlin, signing his name to them if they correctly
represented his opinions. In answer he enclosed me the copy which I had
sent him, corrected where he thought the notes inexact, and an
accompanying letter, stating that he did not forbid me to use the
material which he had given me, but that he did not wish to set his name
to any publication, if only for the reason that he was not sufficiently
familiar with the English to judge accurately as to the shades of
meaning, and thus could not say whether he accurately agreed with the
notes as they stand, or not.
The copy which he corrected and returned to me I place at length in this
Report, merely translating his corrections (very literally), and
inserting them at the points indicated by himself. They are enclosed in
quotation marks. In some instances, my desire for exactitude in the
translations has resulted in very bad English; the shape of my own
paragraphs is due to the time and manner of their framing, and to a
reluctance to making any changes in their form afterwards.
The copy reads as follows:
On July 3d, 1886, I visited Professor W. Scheibner, at his rooms, in
Leipsic, and obtained from him the following information concerning
Professor Zoellner's Spiritistic experiments with Dr. Henry Slade, the
American Medium:
1. Professor Scheibner thinks that he was present at three or four of
the regular séances with Slade. Slade came to Professor Zoellner's
rooms; they sat around a table for perhaps half an hour, and then, after
the séance was over, they spent an hour or two sitting informally in the
same room, or in the next room, and talking. During these informal
conversations surprising things would occur. Raps would now and then be
heard, and objects would unexpectedly be thrown about the room. In these
conversations Professor Scheibner was present perhaps five or six times.
Some of these took place during the day, and some in the evening.
2. Professor Scheibner said that each single thing that he saw might
possibly have been jugglery, "although he perceived nothing that raised
a direct suspicion."
The whole number of incidents taken together, however, surprised him,
and seemed scarcely explicable as jugglery, for there did not seem to be
the necessary time or means for preparing so many tricks, "which often
connected themselves surprisingly with desires casually expressed in
momentary conversations."
Professor Scheibner said, however, that he did not regard himself as
competent to form an opinion which should have scientific weight,
because:
(_a_) He knows nothing about jugglery;
(_b_) He was merely a passive spectator, and could not, properly
speaking, make observations--could not suggest conditions, "or gain the
control which seemed necessary;" and
(_c_) He is short-sighted, "and might easily have left unnoticed
something essential."
He says merely, that to him, _subjectively_, jugglery did not seem a
good "or sufficient" explanation of the phenomena.
3. Professor Scheibner said that he had never seen anything of the kind
before. He had never even, since his childhood, seen any exhibitions of
jugglery; he does not go to see such things, because he is so
short-sighted that if he went he would see nothing. In this connection
he repeated his statement that from this, among other causes, he did not
regard himself as competent to give an opinion. He said that many
persons in Germany had demanded his opinion, but that he had refused it
because he regarded his subjective impression, without objective proofs,
as scientifically valueless.
4. Professor Scheibner said that he did not believe in these things
before. He came to the séances because Professor Zoellner was a personal
friend. He has seen very little of the sort since.
That little has been in the presence of a lady in Leipsic through whom
raps occurred, and psychography. This last phenomenon consisted in
communication through a little contrivance, furnished with an index or
pointer, which answered questions by pointing to letters laid out before
it. This it did when the lady placed her hand on the machine. The
questions were "usually" not asked mentally, but spoken out. There were
no tests applied to these phenomena, no conditions of exact
investigation. Professor Scheibner "holds suspicion of conscious
deception to be out of the question."
5. Professor Zoellner was, said Professor Scheibner, a man of keen
mind, but in his investigations apt to see "by preference" what lay in
the path of his theory. He could "less easily" see what was against his
theory. He was childlike and trustful in character, and might easily
have been deceived by an impostor. He expected everyone to be honest and
frank as he was. He started with the assumption that Slade meant to be
honest with him. He would have thought it wrong to doubt Slade's
honesty. Professor Zoellner, said Professor Scheibner, set out to find
proof for four-dimentional space, in which he was already inclined to
believe. His whole thought was directed to that point.
6. Professor Scheibner thinks that the mental disturbance under which
Zoellner suffered later, might be regarded as, at this time, incipient.
He became more and more given to fixing his attention on a few ideas,
and incapable of seeing what was against them. Towards the last he was
passionate when criticized. Professor Scheibner would not say that
Professor Zoellner's mental disturbance was pronounced and full-formed,
so to speak, but that it was incipient, and, if Zoellner had lived
longer, would have fully developed. Zoellner himself, "whose brothers
and sisters frequently[A] suffered from mental disease, often feared
lest a similar fate should come upon him."
[Footnote A: "Dessen Geschwister mehrfach" etc.--the words may be taken
in two senses.]
7. Professor Scheibner gives no opinion on Spiritism. He can only say
that he cannot explain the phenomena that he saw.
8. Professor Weber, said Professor Scheibner, "attended the
Zoellner-Slade experiments under the same circumstances as he
(Scheibner) himself."
9. Professor Zoellner's book, said Professor Scheibner, would create the
impression that Weber and Fechner and he agreed with Zoellner throughout
in his opinion of the phenomena "and their interpretation;" but this, he
said, is not the case.
HALLE a.S., _July 5th_, 1886.
So much for the information given by Professor Scheibner. It now
remained to see Professor Wilhelm Weber, and on the evening of July 12th
I called upon him at his house in Goettingen. Of his statements I took
notes during my conversation with him, as in the former instances, and
copied and arranged them the same evening at my hotel. Professor Weber
is now eighty-three years old, and does not lecture. He is extremely
excitable and somewhat incoherent when excited. I found it difficult to
induce him to talk slowly enough, and systematically enough, for me to
make my notes. Professor Weber said:
1. That he thought the things he saw in the séances with Slade were
different from jugglery.
2. That he did not think there was time or opportunity for Slade to
prepare deceptions.